Chapter 9

Hairy

In the morning:

Tipi: check.

Buffalo robe: check.

Smoldering fire: check.

On one side, finely shaped breast under hand: check.

On the other side, excellent buttocks against hip: check.

Outside, War pony: I’ll have to check: check.

.53 full stock Hawken flintlock and possibles bag between two liner poles: check. Check? I checked. I handled it lovingly. My own ... I’m not dreaming ... a rather severe pinch on my arm: check. I’m alive: check.

Fuck!

It looks like I’ve traded a 30 year old wife and three kids for a 16 year old wife and her 14 year old sister. Something I’d contemplated but never thought I’d succeed.

So ... where am I? When am I? Where’s my truck?

Shit! Time travel is possible! If there was ever a time when I wished my college discussions about multiple dimension worlds were false ... now is the time.

Speaking of time ... it’s time I examined what came with me and what stayed home.

I gave the tipi a thorough going over ... my wives shall be pissed ... I am making a mess. I’ll say this for the girls ... they are industrious. Quilled or beaded parfleches lined up against the liner walls. (Parfleche: a rawhide bag with leather ties to keep it shut. Parfleches are used for storage: food, clothing, and other stuff. Also called possibles bag because they can contain every possible thing. If it won’t fit in a parfleche you don’t need it.)

I opened every one of them.

So far, I have been able to narrow down the date to before 1840 but after 1815. The rifle is a full stock flinter, straight grain maple with iron furniture. It’s my rifle ... I built it from parts I got from the Log Cabin catalogue. But the style copies one of Samuel Hawken’s original 1815 guns ... a Rocky Mountain Rifle. Five cans of Swiss ff rifle powder, one can of Swiss ffff priming powder that should last until I can trade for more. Three steel ‘hawks that I cut out of a 48” sawmill blade and then forged; two “Green River” butcher knives, three straight razor patch knives, a Spanish fighting knife and scabbard. My hunting bag, belt, leggins, breechclout, hard sole mocs were in one of the parfleches. The belt bag with twenty 1817 gold Sovereigns, ten turbaned gold eagles and a mess of Spanish, Dutch and French silver coins, and some copper pennies.

I’m rich!

In one of the possibles bags were my period tools ... including my German drawknife. Great ... poles would be easy.

The canvas tipi ... not hide ... hemp canvas being one of the major trade items; a hide tipi took 18 or so buffalo hides ... but the work in preparing the hide was immense ... and the damn thing weighed a hundred and fifty pounds. A trader would accept 18 unworked hides in exchange for enough canvas to sew up an 18 foot tipi, liner and door that weighed less than fifty pounds. The wives loved canvas. Getting buffalo hide thin enough to be translucent was a ton of very skilled work.

No sleeping bags or lazyback chairs, but my point blankets came through.

My powder-horn didn’t come with, but the original owner had several beautifully carved buffalo horn spoons and horns I wouldn’t feel guilty using.

I wonder what happened to my original owner.

He died.

Hmmm.